COMEY: I documented my meetings with Trump because 'I was honestly concerned that he might lie' about them

Former
FBI Director James Comey pauses after speaking during a Senate
Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8,
2017, in Washington.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey
told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that he
documented his meetings with President Donald Trump because he
"was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our
meeting."

Comey wrote in his testimony for the committee that was published
on Wednesday that he had nine one-one-one conversations with
Trump between January and April. He wrote that he first met with
Trump on January 6 to brief Trump on a dossier containing
allegations of ties between his campaign and Moscow, and
"felt compelled to document" that meeting in a memo.

"To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI
vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the
meeting," Comey wrote.

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, noted during Thursday's
hearing that Comey has "had extensive experience at the
Department of Justice and at the FBI" and has worked for
presidents of both parties.

"What was it about that meeting that led you to determine that
you needed to start putting down a written record?" Warner asked.

Comey responded that it was a number of things.

"I think the circumstances, the subject matter, and the person I
was interacting with. Circumstances first, I was alone with
the ... president-elect of the United States. The subject
matter, I was talking about matters that touch on the FBI's core
responsibility and that relate to the president-elect personally.
And then the nature of the person. I was honestly concerned that
he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it
really important to document."

Comey continued: "That combination of things I'd never
experienced before, but it led me to believe that I've got to
write it down and I've got to write it down in a very detailed
way."

Comey said later that after Trump tweeted about having "tapes" of
his conversations with Comey, he asked his friend, a
Columbia Law professor, to share the memo with a reporter so
that the public would have his side of the story. He told Sen.
Roy Blunt that he understood the memos to be unclassified
and leaked them to the press in the hopes it would lead to
the appointment of a special counsel.

In his prepared testimony, Comey went into more detail about his
notes on his meetings with Trump.

"Creating written records immediately after one-on-one
conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point
forward," Comey said of his first meeting with Trump. "This had
not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President
Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to
discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly,
for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those
circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall
nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months
– three in person and six on the phone."

Comey also wrote in his prepared testimony that Trump asked
him for loyalty during their dinner on January 27, but that he
told the president "that I was not on anybody's side
politically and could not be counted on in the traditional
political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the
president."

James Comey says he wrote memos about meetings with Trump because “he might lie about the nature of our meeting” https://t.co/RA8Z5WauzO